Playmates
Toys hasn't made action figures for a new license in a number of years
(although they've been cranking out the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
with extreme prejudice), so it was somewhat surprising that two of the
largest licenses of 2009 went their way.

I started this week off with a review of the 3 3/4" scale Star Trek
figures, and tonight I'm switching to the other license - Terminator:
Salvation. Coming in May just two weeks after Trek, it won't just be
Connor versus the Terminators...it'll be Connor versus Kirk.

In preparation for the new flick, I re-watched the classic original
movie last week. It's shocking to see how far CGI effects have come in
20 years - when the baked, nekkid Terminator comes walking out of the
flames, it's almost as herky jerky as the claymation films of the
sixties. And yes, as reader Gabe properly points out, that was still
stop motion work and not CGI. In the new film, it's going to be almost
impossible to tell
the real people from the fake Terminators, just like it is for the
Resistance.

Playmates is hitting this license fast and hard too, with figures in
10", 6" and 3 3/4" scales all at stores now. This first wave of 6"
figures includes six figures, and I'm reviewing the T-600, T-700, and
T-R.I.P. (Terminator - Resistance Infiltrator Prototype) tonight. The
other three in the first set are the T-1 (a more insect-like robot),
John Connor, and
Marcus.

These run about ten bucks at most retailers, and you can find them at
stores
like Target and Toys R Us. I will be covering both the 10" scale and
the 3 3/4" scale before the movie hits, if you are interested in those
as well.

BTW, today is April 15th, the
day that income tax filing is due for
most Americans. I don't know if it's ironic or simply fitting that I'm
reviewing Terminator figures on that day - you be the judge.

Packaging - ***
The cardbacks are attractive, but a bit cartoony, much like the overall
series. While the cardbacks are all consistent, there is some good
personalized text added to the front of the bubble for each character.
Like some other current cardback/bubble packages, you can get the
inside tray out without completely ripping the bubble off the backer,
but you'll have to take extra care with this wide, slightly short
style. You can slit the tape on either side in back, cut across the
bottom, and flip up the bubble, carefully pulling out the tray.

Sculpting - T-R.I.P.,
T-700 **1/2; T-600 **
We've had a fair share of T-800 Endoskeletons in the 6 - 7" scale over
the years from multiple companies, so there's plenty to compare these
to in terms of quality.

The T-600 is the most
disappointing in this category. He comes wearing the half human, half
metal head, and this one is the lesser of the two in terms of sculpt
and paint. It's very cartoony, and in fact the entire figure looks more
like something that would fit right in with the Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles line. Look at that mouth and lips and tell me he doesn't scream
'Saturday morning cartoon'. The sculpted clothing looks very chunky and
blocky, much
like a dollar store toy.

His robotic parts look much
better, and swapping on the extra completely clean head improves things
quite a bit, but he's still not a figure you're likely to display with
any of your other Terminator action figures. He's quite large too,
standing 7 1/4 inches tall.

The T-700 and the T-R.I.P. fair
a bit better, but their sculpts are still much softer than some of the
work we've seen from NECA and McFarlane in the past. The heads are
especially disappointing, with almost non-existent teeth, and deformed
jaws from the production process.

The T-R.I.P. has some battle
damage (see the bullet mark on the chest?), but the two figures are
almost identical in this category. The next category is where the T-700
takes a step up from his cousin. There is one aspect of the sculpt
though that makes the T-700 preferable for me - the open mouth. It
looks like they tried to go with a closed mouth on the T-R.I.P.
(although it's hard to tell if it's on purpose or a manufacturing
issue), and my tastes run more to the gapping mouth on the
T-700.

Both figures stand 6 inches
tall, making them a little shorter than the previous 7" scale versions.
That's going to be an unfortunate issue, since I really want this T-700
to stand next to the previous Endoskeletons on the shelf. Even if you
were considering putting these with other 6" scale figures (like DCUC),
they are a bit too thin and short to really look right. I've included a
shot at the end with a DCUC Flash to give you some idea.

The T-700 would have managed
another half star here if not for one issue. This is more of a quality
issue than a pure technical sculpt issue, and you can avoid it if you
pay extra attention when picking out your figure. My T-700 has his feet
swapped! Yep, the left is right, the right is left. It's not like you
can't easily tell either, since the toes are clearly defined. It's a
bigger issue than pure aesthetics too - the feet are sculpted to keep
him standing with the limited articulation. However, put them on the
wrong legs, and they don't work in that regard. AAARGH!

An interesting aspect of all
four of these heads is the inclusion of a clear window of plastic in
the top of the head, connected to the eyes. This is a very old Kenner
trick used to make the eyes appear to light up. I positioned a light to
show off this feature in the close ups, and as you can see it works
pretty good. I didn't do any additional photoshop work to any of the
eyes - it's just a bright light above their head.

However, the final shot in the
review (with the bluish lighting) does have a small cheat. It's a
composite of two photos, one with a light directly on the head causing
the eyes to light up, and one without it. Since the top of the head was
more visible at that angle, I used the composite to give the best
overall appearance, but the eyes were light in the same way.

Paint - T-700 ***;
T-R.I.P., T-600 *1/2
Here's the one category where the T-700 takes a solid lead over his
cousin the T-R.I.P. While neither of them sport much in the way of
paint details, the T-700 has a cool feature that makes him the pick of
the litter.

They've
given his metallic structure a textured appearance, all in a darker
gray. Although there are some very minor sculpt differences between the
two on the head and torso, I don't *think* this texturing is part of
the sculpt itself, but rather the paint. I could very well be wrong,
but I'm not going to carve mine up to see - in either case, this
feature gives him an edge.

The T-R.I.P. is the more
traditional,
smooth silver. They've used a wash to bring out some of the detail, but
the silver does look a bit gloppy and thick in some areas, making the
slightly soft sculpt even softer.

Then there's the old school
T-600. The paint work on the clothing does nothing to reduce it's
cartoonish, silly look, and the wash they've used is over done and
heavy handed, especially around the collar. The skin tone of the half
human head is silly looking, but like the sculpt, the all endo head is
much better.

He has one huge, glaring, can't
ignore it paint issue though, above
and beyond any sort of quality concern. His pant legs, or what's left
of them, are a brown color...but the crotch of his pants from the belt
down is the same color as his shirt. Huh? Those brown legs sticking out
of the gray pelvis just looks goofy.

Articulation - T-600 **1/2;
T-R.I.P., T-700 **
The T-600 actually gets to best his descendants in this category, but
it's the only one.

Since
he has swappable heads, there's a cut neck joint. Since Terminators
tend to be pretty stiff necked guys, especially the early models, I can
live with that.

He
also has pin/post style ball jointed
shoulders, pin/post elbows (so the arm can turn as well) and single pin
knees, cut wrists, a cut waist, and
pin/post hips. The waist is more of an action feature sort of thing,
snapping back in place when you turn him. While he really also needs a
cut joint on his
legs, the articulation isn't too bad.

Neither
of his next
generation have as much articulation. There's no usable neck joint at
all, and
no jaw joint. It looks like they might have intended for a cut joint at
the neck, but the pistons are so tight and short, that movement is
pretty much impossible.

The shoulders allow the arms to
move forward and out
(with the wires on the back of the shoulder attached on a post so they
can turn and not impeded the arm movement), but there's no cut shoulder
like on the old NECA version.

There's also no cut wrists, and
the
pin elbows and knees appear to only allow forward and backward
movement. It looks like the elbows SHOULD be able to turn inward and
outward too, but since I couldn't get any of the four elbows to do
that, I held off twisting too hard. You might want to try the freezer
trick, or maybe some hot water to see if you can free them up.

The
pin hips just allow forward and backward movement, and the leg finished
off with cut ankles. You can get the endos to stand on their own pretty
well, assuming of course that you don't have one with swapped feet.

The
waist can also turn, and the pistons on either side move freely to
allow it. However, he can't stay turned to one side or the other,
because these same pistons want to pull him back to center.

The
big disappointment here is the lack of any neck articulation, and no
cut wrists. Just those two additions would have done a lot to help this
score, but owners of the NECA Endo know that a lot more articulation is
possible.

Accessories - ***
Like the smaller Trek figures, it's the accessories which help save the
figures. Not quite as much this time, but they are still pretty well
done.

Every one comes with a movie
trading card, and their card is specific to them. The cards are nice,
similar to any other glossy, heavy stock trading card, but you know I'm
not a huge fan of paper extras.

Each character comes with two
additional weapon related accessories. The T-R.I.P. has a small gun, as
well as a hunk of pipe (eerily reminiscent of the hunk used by Reese on
the T-800 Endo); the T-700 has two guns, one a hand gun and one a
larger two handed laser rifle; and the T-600 comes with a Gatling style
laser rifle, with a removable backpack and ammo clip. The clip threads
through the gun, but can be easily removed, both from his back and the
gun.

The sculpts on all the weapons
are pretty decent for this scale, although the paint doesn't really do
much to help support that work. There's a pretty heavy handed wash on
all the guns except for the T-600 cannon, which tends to cheapen their
look a bit.

The T-600 cannon has a clip to
attach it to his arm, and the hand sculpts on the other two all work
pretty well with the weapons. The limited articulation makes it tough
for them to do a two handed pose, but perhaps if you use some hot water
on those elbows, you'll have better luck than I did.

As
I've already mentioned several times, the T-600 also comes with a
second head that's full on endo. This is probably going to be the head
you pop on and leave on.

Fun Factor - ***
Okay, these figures have some issues, but the reality is that they
could have plenty of play potential. As goofy as the T-600 is, he's got
enough usable articulation to battle other figures and stand well on
his own, and the two Endoskeletons are still based on one of the
coolest robot designs ever. Kids don't have to be familiar with the
movie to see the potential in these basic character designs.

Value - **
I wasn't too surprised by the ten buck price tag, since that seems to
be the going rate for mass market 6" figures these days. However,
compared to some of the other figures on the market, these are lower
quality at the same price.

Things To Watch Out For
-
Don't make the mistake I did and pick out a T-700 with backwards feet -
you'll seriously regret it. Hopefully mine was a fluke, and this wasn't
an issue that lasted for any sort of appreciable time period during
manufacture.

Overall - T-700 **1/2;
T-R.I.P., T-600 **
If I had gotten a T-700 with proper feet, he might have pulled another
half star. Of these three, he's my favorite by far, with a better head
sculpt than the T-R.I.P., and that cool textured paint job.

However, both Endoskeletons are
hurt by a rather soft sculpt and mediocre articulation. If we didn't
already have Endos with better working joint systems in a similar
scale, we might not know better - but we do.

The T-600 is just too cartoony
to fit in with these or any other Terminators. The same is true of the
Marcus figure in this series, although the T-1 looked like it had
potential.

The
bottom line - the T-700 is worth picking up if you can find something
to display him with. Skip the other two unless you're a completist, and
give that T-1 a glance on the pegs. And please, avoid Marcus and Connor
at all costs!

There's
also something worth noting on the positive side for both the
Terminator AND Trek lines from Playmates. At least they know how to
give us a great character selection right out of the gate - if Hasbro
were doing this Terminator series, we'd get 4 versions of John Connor,
and 1 each of the three Terminators. And can you imagine the Trek line
up if Mattel were handling it? That first wave of ten figures would
have included 4 Kirks, 3 Spocks, 1 McCoy, 1 Nero, and 1 Uhura with a
chase version thrown in for good measure.

Discussion:
Want to chat about this review? Try out one of these terrific forums where I'll be
discussing it!

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Reader Ratings!

Here's your chance to weigh
in! Select your rating for this figure(s) to the
right.
Yea, it's a five star system and not a four star system like
mine,
but it's the best I've been able to come up with so far. You
can
only rate once from any particular IP. My score converted to
a five star system for comparison: 2.9